Any entry that uses AVE will be given a score of zero for research, planning, measurement and evaluation in the 29th CIPR Excellence Awards next year.

The awards will also feature two new categories: the best campaign in the technology sector, and a ‘people’s choice’ award, which will recognise an outstanding PR professional of the year.

Entries will be accepted until 25 February 2013, with an extended deadline of 4 March.

Gerry Hopkinson, co-founder of Unity, and winner of a 2012 CIPR excellence award, said: ‘We support the CIPR's stance on AVEs and believe effectiveness is about delivering tangible and agreed campaign outcomes. PR deserves to be judged on its own merits not against an outdated advertising equivalency concept.’

The CIPR, led by CEO Jane Wilson, has also announced the publication of Share This Too, the follow-up to handbook Share This, in summer 2013.

The book will feature 35 contributors and build on the themes in the first book, which sold more than 2,000 copies, offering practical guidance on how professional communicators can use social media and networks and platforms to engage directly in conversation with audiences.

Share This editor and Ketchum social media director Stephen Waddington said: ’The public relations industry is going through the biggest upheaval since the proliferation of mainstream media in the 1950s. Share This brought together experienced practitioners through the CIPR social media panel to address those changes from a practical standpoint. The response has been phenomenal but there’s more work to be done.’